In the third season premiere, Sheldon returns from a three-month expedition to the North Pole believing he has recorded evidence of monopoles, confirming string theory. However, Leonard, Howard, and Raj confess that they showed him false results to keep him from driving them crazy.
Sheldon often gets too off-the-wall for me to empathize, but in this episode I felt for him being tricked. One description I’d seen began, “After tampering with Sheldon’s Arctic expedition data…” It was easy to believe the guys would mess with Sheldon after three months in close quarters; I couldn’t believe they as scientists would sacrifice the integrity of an experiment to mess with Sheldon. In their defense, they kept the actual data and might have saved Sheldon any embarrassment if he hadn’t been so quick to report the rigged data. This doesn’t change the fact they tricked him.
When we last left Penny, she’d admitted she didn’t want Leonard to go on the expedition, but only after he had gone. After all the buildups to Leonard and Penny kissing last season, I was startled there was no buildup in the premiere. Penny just says, “Leonard, you’re back,” and pulls him—three-month beard and all—into her apartment with a kiss. Later, there’s a sweet moment of Leonard giving Penny a perfectly-preserved snowflake, but again she cuts off talk with a kiss.
In the middle of the episode, Sheldon fled home to Texas in embarrassment. I thought the guys’ going after him would push Leonard and Penny’s private time off to the second episode or even later. When Sheldon forgives the guys, it’s quick, but not out of character. After all, Sheldon once dropped Raj as a friend and took him back in the space of a minute (“The Friendship Algorithm,” season 2).
Penny and Leonard do finally have sex for the first time, during the episode’s last commercial break. The short scene before the closing credits shows them in the afterglow. Leonard tries to rationalize that sex hasn’t made things awkward between them, but finally they admit to feeling “weird.”
After two seasons, I was hoping to see more of Penny and Leonard’s big night. At the same time, I like how the show subverted expectations of the big event, not showing the event as it happened, but showing its effects. Similarly, very little of Penny and Leonard’s first date was shown, yet its effects were felt all though last season. It’s an approach I haven’t seen before, and will keep me watching Season 3.
Loved the episode and think Leonard and Penny together was good. Yeah was interesting they skipped the whole expedition but it still worked out in the shows favor.
Was also cool to see Sheldon go back home and think about giving up. Plus I love that guy at his work with the speech issue. Surprised we didnt see whats her name, Leslie since it was such a big Sheldon messes up moment.
I loved the episode. The scene with Raj pretending to be force-choked by Sheldon “I feel bad for the guy” was classic. And I’m so excited to see Leonard and Penny together; I loved the snowflake part.
I liked the show better when Penny and Leonard were just friends, but never really getting it togather. I’ll keep watching the show, but where does it have to go from here? Hope it works out. Thanks.